


A Stroke of Poor Fortune

by Sorrel_Oake



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphynecentric, F/F, Heat Stroke, Hurt/Comfort, Undertale Neutral Route, they're not like. together in this fic but the pining is Real, this is what happens when you dump the water out in undyne's face you absolute jerks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 13:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel_Oake/pseuds/Sorrel_Oake
Summary: When Alphys gets a terrifying string of texts from her best friend, can she save her from heatstroke in time?





	A Stroke of Poor Fortune

The human had just gone through the lab without any issue. Alphys was feeling kind of proud of herself, in a scumbag kind of way, because they had _definitely_ fallen for her ruse with Mettaton and she was absolutely sure she’d be able to convince them not to kill the king. She pulled out her phone and checked her messages as she walked over to her stand-up monitor to check the footage of Undyne’s fight.

3:40

❤undyne❤: gonna fight the human now!

❤undyne❤: wish me luck

And, from nearly ten minutes ago:

3:50

❤undyne❤: allphhys hlrp mw

❤undyne❤: fell outsd lb

❤undyne❤: cannnntget

❤undyne❤: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

 

Alphys stared at the phone in horror. She’d gathered that Undyne hadn’t killed them, but she hadn’t realized that that would mean that Undyne was in trouble herself. Cursing herself, she rushed out the door, across the crossroads-- _where were the guards_ \--and out to the cooler, where she stopped cold.

Undyne was lying in full armor, on the ground, inches from the cooler, which had been toppled. Every drop of water had evaporated, and a tiny tree had begun to grow from the soil next to it.

“Oh n-no…”

She rushed to Undyne’s side. Her armor was radiating so much heat Alphys thought _she_ would pass out.

“You’re b-burning up… what did they do to you…?”

A quick scan from her phone revealed that Undyne’s core temperature had hit 108 degrees. Her heart felt like it was breaking, but there was no time to waste--Alphys grabbed her in a fireman’s carry and ran as fast as she could manage back across the bridge, terrified to take her any closer to the warmer regions of Hotlands even to bring her to the lab. Luckily, Undyne’s house was close to Hotlands, and she managed to get Undyne indoors through a broken window before she collapsed, her strength spent, leaving Undyne faceup on the cold tile floor, where her armor immediately began to singe them. She took a deep, shaking breath, and opened the freezer to look for ice before realizing that it was practically oven heat now that she’d converted the fridge to a hot fridge and slamming it with a curse. She grabbed a potholder and started to remove Undyne’s armor, starting with the plates over the fragile gills on her chest. Then, she ripped open part of her shirt so she could get to the gills and filled a teapot with the coldest water she could run. She poured the cold water onto the red, parched, skin of her gills and breathed a small sigh of relief as Undyne’s chest rose and fell evenly, signifying that the gills had indeed processed the water and she was getting the oxygen she needed from it.

She continued running teapots of water back and forth for half an hour, then grabbed Undyne’s phone and slowed down just long enough to text Papyrus that Undyne needed her.

Within thirty seconds he replied. “WHAT’S WRONG, DOCTOR ALPHYS?”

“Undyne has heatstroke. Come immediately bring ice/snow from Snowdin.”

“ROGER.” In a few seconds there was a knock at the door. She finished pouring another teapot of water onto Undyne’s gills and opened it for him, seeing with some shock that he was carrying a large cooler of snow.

“OH NO! WHAT DO WE DO TO HELP HER?”

Alphys took a quick second to strategize. “Can you put her in her bathtub?”

Papyrus nodded sharply, lifted her as if she weighed nothing at all, and took her through her bedroom door with Alphys tagging along behind dragging the cooler of snow on its tiny wheels. When he settled her in her bathtub and ran off, clearly upset about something, Alphys grabbed a handful of snow and packed it against the gills on the right of her neck. She bit her lip, feeling heat drain out of her hands, but kept going, focusing on Undyne's gills, armpits, back, and groin, where the blood vessels would be close to the surface and snow would cool her core temperature. Finally, when she could scrape no more snow from the edges of the cooler, she collapsed on the floor next to the tub, breathing hard. The contact with the snow had made her cold-blooded mind sluggish, but she had to stay awake. She couldn't let Undyne go unmonitored, not after almost losing her after being too focused on herself and her plans to see that Undyne had texted her on the brink of death.

Finally, Undyne stirred, making Alphys’ adrenaline spike and chasing away her torpor. “U-undyne!”

“Ngh… the human… where’s the human… have to stop them… can’t let them… get to Alphys… have to--”

Alphys rushed to the edge of the bathtub and grabbed Undyne’s hand, heart pounding. “I’m r-right here!”

Undyne’s eye fluttered open. “...’lphys…”

“Undyne, y-you--” Alphys gulped, trying to keep her voice even. “You had h-heatstroke…”

Undyne ground her teeth. “Dammit… the human…”

“I-I’m gonna t-take care of them,” she said, which technically wasn’t a lie. “Mettaton’s h-helping.”

“Where…”

“W-we’re at your house, Undyne. I b-brought you back.”

Undyne watched her, concerned. “They didn’t… hurt you… right?”

“N-no,” Alphys said, though it felt like her heart was splitting in two thinking about that cooler. It had to be them that had knocked it over, she’d made sure it was working just that morning... They must’ve had the chance to give her water, show her some mercy, but they hadn’t just ignored it--they had dumped her last hope out in front of her. If Alphys hadn’t checked when she did, if she wasn’t strong enough from lifting machines and Fallen Down monsters and occasionally Mettaton to bring Undyne out of Hotlands, if Papyrus hadn’t come with the snow… she shook her head. “B-but I’m s-s-still worried about you.”

“I’m tough…” Undyne said, eye closing again. “You don’t… have to… worry about me…”

“You just had a h-h-heatstroke, Undyne! I-I-I’m not g-going anywhere.”

“The human…”

“Mettaton will t-take care of them. A-and I’ll take c-care of you!”

Undyne sighed. “I’d… argue but… that actually… sounds kinda… nice……”

“G-good, because I’m n-not leaving.” Alphys smiled. “L-let me bring in the t-tv and we can put on an a-anime while you c-cool down, o-okay? A-a-and you can have some of that kōrudopāpuru, I have s-some in my i-inventory, t-t-that’ll help c-cool you d-down!”

Alphys caught a glimpse of a smile from Undyne as she ran out of the room and turned bright pink. She knew Undyne would have to spend weeks recovering from a heatstroke of this magnitude, but just seeing that smile made her feel like she’d saved the whole world.


End file.
